A Wisdom Tooth Story

A Wisdom Tooth Story

A few weeks ago, I had my wisdom teeth removed. I admit, I was terrified about it for a month leading up to surgery! The surgery itself ended up not being a big deal – they put an IV in my arm, injected some drugs, and then I was out cold. When the drugs wore off, I popped right awake. Recovering was a bit more complicated than that however. The first day isn’t so bad – the swelling hasn’t really set in and you’re still pretty numb…after that is when things get interesting.

Even though I was put on steroids to decrease the amount of swelling I’d have to deal with, I still ended up looking like a chipmunk. By the third day, my cheeks were so swollen! On the fourth day, I woke up with two black eyes and bruising along each jawline. Through all this I could also barely open my jaw to eat. The swelling minorly dislocates your jaw and it takes a couple weeks for it to slide back into place. I also unfortunately ended up with an infection.

Six days after my surgery, I ended up going to urgent care to get antibiotics as my gums had become pretty infected due to problems where my sutures were. It was quite painful and nasty. I’m still dealing with a bit of a problem from it even today – two and a half weeks out from surgery. I ended up on some very strong antibiotics! I also ended up traveling by train to another city and having to rinse the infected area with a syringe each time I ate. Doing that while on a moving train was very interesting.

Now I can say that I’m doing quite well though. There is no more swelling or bruising and my jaw is no longer sore. The infection is all but cleared up and I’m feeling good. I would do it all again if I had to as my teeth were causing me quite a problem.